Saturday, December 24, 2011

Since the first time I saw these wonderful photos done by my daughter at the birth of my littlest grandson, I knew what I wanted to do with them. Here is a 16x20 Art Canvas that I did this year for my Son-in-law and his family for Christmas. The vocal photo is printed at 8x10 and the smaller one is 4x6. The canvas was colored with Twilight CTMH ink using direct to canvas technique for the background. The Chocolate mats were cut with the Art Philosphy Cricut Cartridge an then the center of the larger cut was used as the mat for the smaller picture. They were sanded to distress the edges. The words were cut from Chocolate cardstock using the Lyrical Letters cricut cartridge. The flowers were cut from some cardstock that I had, not sure of who they are from. We had our mini Christmas with the Richmond family yesterday, so I'm not spoiling the surprise by posting today.

I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Wanted to share with you another easy and fun project to do for those on your shopping list. This year is all about a homemade Christmas for me. I have been trying to get different projects completed for the last few months. I love to craft, whether it be crocheting, stamping, sewing, making homemade goodies in the kitchen or using my wonderful embroidery machine. This idea was sparked by a very talented CTMH consultant, Tarina Holloway. She didn't list a blog address so I can't send you to see hers that made me pull out my prize
Felicity Collection papers and stamp set, which was a special offered awhile ago. These could easily be done with any papers and the Art Philosophy cartridge is great for cutting the mats like mine shown here.

(click on any photo to see details)
These are 12 x 16 and are simple frames that I found at Michael's and Walmart for about $5. The artwork is all under the glass ( or acrylic would work too). You can buy Dry Erase pens at various locations and your picture frame becomes a dry erase board. The days of the week were stamped in chocolate using the Save The Date stamp set and the words Notes and To Do were from the stamp set which came with the Felicity papers, but any Alphabet stamp set would do.
So for under $10 you have a personal, useful and decorative gift for friends, family, co-workers, teachers any number of people on your list. I would love to know what you think.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Art Canvas for my Grandson's room. I wanted to do something that I have been thinking about for a long time. All the states are cut from retired CTMH papers using the 50 States Cricut cartridge, cut at 5". I took a 16x20 art canvas and swiped my Cranberry ink pad across it to make the stripes for the flag background. Star Spangled Blue dabbed to the upper corner symbolized the blue star background. The edges of the states were distressed with Chocolate ink before being glued to the art canvas with glue dots. The letters were cut from the Cheerful Seasons cricut cartridge at 1 3/4 inches in Chocolate.
This was a lot of fun to do, I was so happy the my daughter was able to be down for a visit to help me piece the puzzle together. I was going to leave it as just a canvas and hang it as such, but after completing this, she (the mom) feels that it needs to be under a glass or acrylic covering of some kind, so I'll be looking for a frame to put it into where I can have it under cover.

I decided to do a basket of homemade goodies for my Hostess club Ladies to thank them for their friendship and loyalty. It started with the idea of cozy socks, packaged as cupcakes.I didn't like this wrapper that was what I had fashioned. I had another wonderful consultant email a cut file she had done for the wrappers on Design Studio and so I decided to make the wrappers out of the Believe paper pack papers. I ran them thru my crimper to give them the ridges and threaded a fine silver ribbon thru the scalloped wrapper, packaged them with a cherry on top and a little tag that says peace on earth stamped from the Christmas Melodies stamp set.

(click on a picture to enlarge to see more details)

The jars in the front show my homemade Pomegranate Sugar Scrub to to pamper their skin against the dryness of winter and the bag holds some yummy Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix with mini chocolate chips. Just a few goodies to pamper them. They all got put in silver baskets that I found at the $ store and then bagged and a poinsettia and ribbon added to pretty them up. It was a lot of fun, and I hope they will enjoy the contents as much as I enjoyed making the gifts for them.

. They are not allowed by the school to bring candy, so I figured a couple of packs of $tree pencils would be perfect. Then I added an eyelet and stung some gold thread to make a hanger, so that the kids can remove the pencils and still have an ornament for their tree. I block of white styrefoam makes a good base to stick the pencils in and will be fairly easy to carry into the school the day of the party. The pencils have a glue dot and a small band of cardstock holding them on the back, easy to remove and not damage the toppers/ornaments. These were all cut from the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and CTMH cardstock. It was so easy to do when my cricut did all the cutting.
I'd love to know what you think? I have several Christmas gifts I'm working on for friends and family and will be posting them as I complete them.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

I am convinced that I am truly in my second childhood. A couple of years ago, I finally gave in and bought a fake tree. I have to tell you as a real tree advocate, it was a big concession, but as the kids left the nest it was just one more way to minimize all the work hubby has to do to help me around the house and tree shopping and decorating and clean up were one of the issues he had with decorating for Christmas. Thank goodness that the kids have managed to get home for a least a portion of the holidays, or there would be no Christmas decorations to be found here if Dad had anything to do with it. Well while the fake tree was pretty once set up, and yeah it was easier not to have to string lights and pick up pine needles, I just couldn't "love" it. So this year I saw this neat idea that someone pasted to facebook, and knew that this would be my new tree love. My theory is if I'm going to put up a fake tree, than don't hide the fact that it's fake, shout it from the tree tops. (click on any picture to get a closer look)

Isn't he fun? It makes me smile every time I see it. We searched high and low for just the right tree, but it was at second hand stores (I know over the years, I've seen a million and wondered why someone would buy a white tree), and at discount places like Big Lots. We tried KMart, and Target no luck, then we tried a little old fashioned box store called Roses and there it was for $25. We added a few strands of new lights with white cords, I elected to buy the one without the lights already attached, cause it was fuller and I don't mind stringing lights. Snowman's head was found at Big Lots ($6),

the super dark blue glass bulbs at KMart for his buttons,

some really pretty garland to add to the fullness and make it shimmer like a fiber optic tree that really gives life to the branches.

I also found some really neat snowflakes at the dollar tree (6 to a card). A blue scarf that was gifted to us, and some pine branches from the yard for arms. So here you have him, I love him so much I may leave him up all winter. I would love to know what you think. Second childhood or just revolting against the green fake tree?